Crossers

by Philip Caputo

  After dressing, he topped up a travel mug with coffee and walked over to Miguel’s trailer, circling around the electric fence erected to keep deer and javelina out of his vegetable garden. Gerardo and Elena having gone to Chandler to visit one of their daughters for the weekend, Miguel was going to help load the culls and accompany Blaine and Castle to the auction. The Airstream door was ajar. Castle tapped on it, calling, “Hola, Miguel.” Receiving no reply, he walked in and found it empty, the fold-down bed unmade. Miguel must have awakened early and gone to ranch headquarters on foot, which was odd; his experiences crossing the border had given him a distaste for walking anywhere when he could ride.

  But when Castle arrived at the main house, no one answered his knock. Monica’s car was in its usual spot alongside the house, but Blaine’s truck was missing. Could they all have gone on to Wilcox without him? No, because the cows were in the corral, the stock trailer parked next to it. He tried the kitchen door. It was locked. He went around to the front door, which was open, and stepped inside. The hall light was on and Blaine’s Luger lay on the floor. He charged into their bedroom, then ran out and searched the barn and toolshed. No one. He slumped against the corral boards, trying to think of what accounted for their disappearance. A logical reason. The windmill squealed, an unsettling sound, like a small animal caught in a trap. The dogs. Blaine’s Australian heelers—why hadn’t they barked when he pulled up? They always did. He left the corral and looked in the backyard. No dogs. Then, passing around to the side of the house, he noticed a paw sticking out from behind a front wheel of Monica’s car. Bending down, he grabbed a hind leg, which was stiff as a pipe and cold to the touch, and when he dragged the dog out from under the car, he couldn’t tell which one it was because half its head had been blown off.

  Castle had not smoked a cigarette since his freshman year at Princeton, but he craved one now. His brain had shut down, a kind of mental power outage, and he imagined nicotine would light it up again. Wait. Blaine smoked. He burst into the house, going straight to the bedroom, where he began pulling drawers open like a burglar in a hurry. He found a fresh pack in the night table, tore it open, shook out a cigarette, and lighted it off the kitchen range. Sucking in the smoke, he nearly fainted. He sat down at the kitchen table and took a second, shallower drag. It did not have the dizzying effect of the first.

  The fog of panic began to clear. Blaine, he remembered, never went anywhere without his cell. Castle dialed it from the kitchen phone and flinched when he heard its musical ring tone coming from inside the house. He ran toward the sound and found the cell phone on the desk in the office. Calling 911 seemed the only thing to do now. He was thinking of what to say to the dispatcher when his own cell phone rang. The caller ID flashed UNKNOWN CALLER. Maybe it was Blaine, phoning from another number. He answered.

  “This is Mr. Castle?” asked a strange female voice.

  “Yes,” he answered in a shaky voice. “Who is this?”

  “Don’t be silly. Let me tell you something. We have Erskine and his wife in custody. They are in perfect health. If you want them to stay that way, you will do what we say.”

  He didn’t respond. His throat felt as narrow as a straw.

  “Do you want them to stay healthy or not?” the woman said. “Let me tell you something else. We have already killed one guy. It would be no problem to kill these two. Do you want that to happen?”

  “Who is this?”

  “Shut up and listen. Erskine owes us two hundred and fifty thousand dollars, but he doesn’t have the money. You do. We know you do. You are a rich man. Right now, do you hear me? Right fucking now you are going to start getting this money. The banks close at five o’clock. You will have this money by that time, in cash. We will call you again and tell you what to do with it, so keep your mobile on. Is there anything you don’t understand?”

  “No … I …”

  “Listen. Do not do anything stupid, like call the police. If you do something stupid, any stupid little thing, however insignificant, Erskine and his wife are dead. Maybe you don’t believe me, so let me tell you one more thing. The guy we killed was Miguel Espinoza. Erskine is a tall, skinny man, his wife is named Monica, and she has blond hair and blue eyes. Do you believe what I’m saying to you, Mr. Castle?”

  He croaked a yes.

  “Five this afternoon,” the caller said, and the connection went dead.

  Castle stood in dazed immobility. He felt like a pedestrian who had looked both ways at an intersection and, seeing no traffic, stepped out into the street only to be struck by a bus. A quarter of a million dollars. How could he be expected to withdraw a quarter of a million dollars in a few hours? In cash. It made no sense. Why, if the kidnappers wanted money out of Blaine, would they have abducted Miguel? Could they really have murdered him? Could this be a hoax? No, of course not. They had his cell number. Blaine or Monica must have given it to them. Sickness assails those leading the most sensible lives … retribution the utterly guiltless, violence the most secluded… He’d read that passage only last night, once again, and once again had forgotten misfortune’s power to impress itself on those who allowed themselves to forget it. He could not pardon himself this time. He had lived on the border long enough, had certainly seen enough to know that life on the line was precarious. Anything at any moment, all things were possible. He got into his car and returned to his—ha!—sanctuary, armed himself with the Smith and Wesson, kenneled Sam in the back, and drove off.

  At first he intended to go to the San Ignacio’s bank in Tucson and arrange for a wire transfer of $250,000 from his account in New York; but then he had second thoughts. A transaction like that would be a very red red flag. Questions would be asked, and answering them would take a lot more time than he had.

  HE TURNED AROUND and drove to Tessa’s ranch, checking in his rear and sideview mirrors to make sure that he wasn’t being followed. He didn’t want Tessa mixed up in this horror, but Blaine and Monica were her friends; she had to be told. Besides, and perhaps uppermost, he needed to talk things through, to figure out what to do.

  At first she reacted as if she’d been struck, but then she heard him out calmly and poured two whiskeys and told him to sit down and go through everything again.

  “Do you have it?” she asked, sitting beside him in her living room. “It’s a dreadful question, but if it’s not even possible to come up with the ransom, we have to think of what you’ll say the next time they call.”

  “Sure I’ve got it, but I might as well not have it,” he replied, and then explained why.

  “What if you say that? That their demand is impossible to meet?”

  “What do you suppose they’ll say?” Castle scoffed. “Oh, all right, get as much as you can, any old amount will do? Those people must be crazy, thinking I can just withdraw a quarter of a million in cash in a few hours.”

  They sat without talking, staring into space, Then Tessa said, “You don’t have any choice. You have got to call the police.”

  “That woman sounded like she meant what she said. No cops.”

  Tessa got up and grabbed her portable phone and placed it in his lap. “We have to assume the police will know what to do. You don’t. I don’t. We don’t know who’s got them or where they are. We’re totally blind. You have to take the chance.”

  Castle could not believe his own words as he reported what had happened to Sheriff Rodriguez, whom he’d called out of a meeting. Afterward he heard only the sound of Rodriguez’s breathing.

  “Sheriff?”

  “Yeah, I’m here. Where are you right now?”

  Castle told him.

  “Did you notice anyone following you?” Rodriguez asked.

  “Not that I saw.”

  “Okay, stay where you are. It’s possible they have the San Ignacio eyeballed. If they see people show up there, they’ll probably carry out the threat.”

  “People?”

  “Me, for one. The FBI, for another. Kidnapping is for the FBI. I’m
going to contact their Tucson office as soon as I hang up. It’s real, real important for you and Miss McBride to keep as calm as you can. Don’t talk to anybody else about this till we get there. I mean absolutely nobody.”

  “But Rick, their son—”

  “Let us handle that. Stay put, keep quiet.”

  BY LATE AFTERNOON a law enforcement convention had assembled in Tessa’s living room: Rodriguez; a paunchy, bespectacled Border Patrol agent named Gomez (who reminded Castle that they had met before); and two FBI special agents, one lugging a case loaded with telephone recording devices and other electronic equipment. The sheriff and Gomez, wearing plain clothes, had arrived in an unmarked car, the FBI agents in what looked like a delivery van, which they parked in Tessa’s hay barn.

  One of the FBI men, with thorough formality, introduced himself as Ralph Inserra, senior resident agent of the Tucson Resident Agency. A lanky man with a widow’s peak of black hair and a sallow complexion, he spoke in the flat tones of the Midwest. Straight away he assured Castle and Tessa that the FBI’s first priority was to secure the safe release of the hostages.

  Hostages. The word reverberated. Blaine and Monica were hostages.

  “We’ll do all we can to get them out,” Inserra continued. “We’ve got every available agent assigned to this case, fifty of them.”

  “Fifty!” Castle’s scalp prickled. “What if they’re spotted?”

  “I assure you, they won’t be. The kidnappers won’t know we’ve been called in.” Inserra broke out a notebook. “I’ve got to get the background.”

  While the other agent plugged a voice-activated recorder into Castle’s cell phone, installed a wiretap in Tessa’s phone, and set up a small satellite dish, Inserra took a chair and quizzed Castle. Was the caller male or female? Female. Did she speak with an accent? No. Did he hear any other voices or sounds in the background? No. Were there any signs of forced entry or a struggle at the Erskines’ house? No—except for Blaine’s gun, it looked as if the kidnappers had been let in. How about the trailer? No signs there, either. Did Castle touch anything? Yes. Doorknobs, drawers. Did the caller say anything that might have given her location away, anything unusual?

  Castle thought for a while. “She did say ‘mobile.’ To keep my mobile on, meaning my cell. Most people would say your cell phone.”

  Inserra and Gomez looked at each other. “Could be significant. An American would have said cell phone, a Mexican might call it a mobile. But you said you didn’t hear an accent?”

  “No.”

  “I know of one female who’d pull off a thing like this who doesn’t talk with an accent,” said Gomez, standing alongside Rodriguez by the fireplace.

  “Let’s not try to identify a suspect just yet. One thing at a time,” Inserra said, somewhat annoyed. He turned to Castle. “We’re going to try something. When they call, tell them you can’t hear them on your cell and ask them to call back on the number here.” He motioned at the technician. “It’ll be easier to trace the call if they’re calling from a landline. But my guess is that they’re calling from a prepaid cell. We can try pinging the call. What I mean is, if the cell towers are within a reasonable range of here, we can at least get a general idea of where they’re calling from. The important thing is for you to keep them on the line as long as you can, find out as much as you can.”

  Castle nodded dumbly as the agent produced from his briefcase a sheet of instructions on how to keep the kidnappers on the line and to pry as much information from them as possible. “Negotiating points,” he called them. He asked Castle to study them, but the words blurred on the page, and reading glasses didn’t help. The technical wizard, meanwhile, finished hooking up his equipment. Tessa went around serving coffee, as if she were the hostess at a neighborhood gathering. The veneer of normality made the situation feel all the more abnormal. She sat down next to Castle, taking his hand. Her palm was damp, and so was his. They waited.

  Castle’s watch read three minutes to five when his cell rang. The same woman’s voice. He said he couldn’t hear her and would she please call him back at another number? He gave it to her.

  “You’re a piece of shit, you know that?” she said. “You want something bad to happen?”

  “If you want the money, you’ll call me back,” he replied, fighting to keep his voice steady. Then, his chest fluttering, he broke the connection. In a few moments the other phone jangled. Inserra donned a headset and jacked it into the recorder to monitor the call.

  “You better not be fucking around, Castle,” said the woman. “Have you got the money?”

  PUT FORTH COOPERATIVE ATTITUDE, read one of the negotiating points, BUT INTRODUCE DELAY BY TELLING CALLER OF PROBLEMS OBTAINING FUNDS DEMANDED. “It’s a lot of money to get in cash,” he said stiffly. “I’ll need time to get it, but I promise you that I will get it.”

  “You are a piece of shit. What are their lives worth to you?”

  “I’m going to get the money, but it will take time.” TELL KIDNAPPER/ CALLER THAT NO RANSOM WILL BE PAID UNTIL PROOF OF LIFE IS FURNISHED. “But I need to know they’re alive. I’m not going to pay you anything until I know they’re alive. Put one of them on the phone, right now, please.”

  There were noises in the background, muffled voices, what sounded like a chair scraping against a floor. Then: “Gil … It’s me … we’re okay …”

  That familiar drawl, all the swagger and strength gone out of it. Blaine sounded like he was eighty years old.

  “Blaine!” Castle said. “Monica’s all right?”

  “Okay.”

  “But Miguel—did they—”

  “That’s enough,” the woman cut in. “We will be generous. We will give you twenty-four hours to get the money. Exactly twenty-four hours. We will call you then and tell you where and when to bring it.”

  She disconnected. Castle put the phone down. The FBI agents, Rodriguez, and Gomez huddled around a laptop, pointing at a map on the screen and murmuring cryptically about “pings” and “triangulations.”

  “She was calling from a cell,” Inserra announced, his naturally morose expression deepening. “We could trace a signal off just one tower, in this general area.” He gestured vaguely at the computer screen. “Inside Mexico. That raises the stakes a lot. We can’t operate in Mexico. We’ll have to bring the MexFeds into this.”

  “Let’s hear the recording,” Gomez said.

  The FBI agent reversed the disk and played back the conversation, and they all sat pitched forward in their seats, straining to hear every nuance, every inflection.

  Gomez lit a cigarette, then as an afterthought politely asked Tessa if it was all right to smoke inside.

  “For God’s sake, yes,” she said.

  Gomez rose and again stood by the fireplace, allowing the smoke from his cigarette to drift up the chimney. “That’s her. That’s the lady herself, La Roja.”

  Tessa scowled. “Who? La Roja?”

  “Yvonne Menéndez. La Roja because she’s a redhead. She’s la jefa of the Agua Prieta Cartel.”

  With a start, Castle recognized the name, recalling what Morales had told Blaine and him weeks and weeks ago. To know there was an identifiable person behind all this somehow made it less surreal, less menacing. It was like going to a doctor with mysterious symptoms and hearing his diagnosis; even if it turned out to be cancer, it was better to know than not to know.

  “Yeah, I know about her and her partnership with Mr. Cruz,” Gomez said to him after he’d related the conversation with Morales. “And the guy your cousin shot worked for her. This is payback, Mr. Castle. Yvonne is big on payback.”

  “Payback,” Castle said under his breath. “But Miguel—what did he have to do with it?”

  Rodriguez threaded his thick fingers together across his chest and gazed at the ceiling, as if in a moment of meditation. “Not a thing. We’ve heard that Cruz is hiding out on the Menéndez ranch, but so far the MexFeds haven’t confirmed that. Cruz may have been mixed up in this kidna
pping. Sure would be convenient for him to have Miguel out of the way. One other possibility is that they killed him—if they did—to show they mean business.”

  Castle said nothing, his heart at war with itself, sadness contending with a disgust of life, fear with anger. “We should have left him there, sheriff. We should have left him up there in Florence. We should have left well enough alone.”

  “People,” said Inserra in the tone of a first sergeant, “people, we can spin theories later. We’ve got to get those hostages released, no matter what. Right now all we know is that they’re on the other side, somewhere.”

  Gomez moved away from the fireplace and spread a hand across the map on the laptop’s screen. “Yvonne’s ranch is just south of the line, nine, ten miles. Odds are, that’s where she’s holding them.” He faced the FBI agent. “I don’t want to step on anybody’s toes, but I know a MexFed captain who can help us out.”

  “And that would be who?” asked Inserra, his pitch and arching eyebrows suggesting that a Border Patrolman could not possibly have contacts superior to those of the FBI.

  Gomez shrugged it off. “Gregorio Bonham. If anybody can find out where she’s got them, he can.”

  “Any coordination with the MexFeds will be handled by our legal attaché in Mexico City.”

  “Bonham won’t go for that, for a lot of reasons I won’t mention,” Gomez said. “But he’s the guy we need to find them and get them out.”

  “Are you talking about a rescue operation?”

  “I could be.”

  Inserra shook his head. “You know the MexFeds. They go charging in like Pancho Villa’s cavalry, and we could have two dead hostages. It looks to me like paying the ransom may be the only way to get them out. Our office can help Mr. Castle put the money together tomorrow.”